Fife Heritage Railway is a

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

run by The Kingdom of Fife Railway Preservation Society, formed in 1992, which aims to showcase the heritage of the railways of

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

and restore locomotives and rolling stock that once worked in Fife. They are based in

Levenmouth Levenmouth is a conurbation comprising a network of settlements on the north side of the Firth of Forth, in Fife on the east coast of Scotland. It consists of three principal coastal towns; Leven, Buckhaven, and Methil, and a number of villages a ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

which has been their base since 2003.

Overview

Following the closure of the

Lochty Private Railway The East Fife Central Railway was a mineral railway line in Fife, Scotland, that ran from near Leven, Fife, Leven to Lochty, Fife, Lochty. It was intended to develop extensive coal measures in the area, but in fact they proved to be uneconomic. T ...

in 1992 due to falling guest numbers and increased public liability premiums, the Kingdom of Fife Railway Preservation Society was quickly formed in May of that year to take over the former Lochty fleet and find a new home for them. In 1994, the last of the fleet was moved from Lochty to the now defunct

Methil Power Station Methil Power Station was a small base load coal slurry-fired power station in the town of Methil, Fife, Scotland. It was situated on the south side of the mouth of the River Leven, where the river enters the Firth of Forth. It was a local lan ...

until the society could find a permanent home for its collection. Various locations around Fife were looked at which included the former Crail Aerodrome, Lochore Meadows, Bowhill Colliery, part of the former Auctertool branch line, the former

Wemyss Private Railway The Wemyss Private Railway was a network of lines, sometimes known as the Wemyss Estate Railway. The lines were a group of mineral and other railways in Fife, Scotland, mainly on the land of the Wemyss family. They were built to connect coal pit ...

site at Scott's Road and even the former Kilconquhar railway station, all of which proved unsuitable for various reasons. In 2001 the society acquired the former Kirkland railway marshalling yard on the outskirts of Leven and in 2003, the rolling stock were moved from the Power Station to their new home. Since then the KFRPS have constructed half a mile of track plus substantial sidings, along with a two-track engine shed which is used for restoration work. In 2016 the Fife Heritage Railway fired the first steam engine to run on a Fife heritage line since the closure of Lochty in 1992. Forth gained its boiler certificate in August which will run until 2020 when it is due for overhaul, after a brief "running in" period, Forth was brought into service during the last days of the 2016 working season. Painted in Wemyss Coal Company livery to match sister locomotives that once worked in the area, an official renaming ceremony was carried out at the start of the 2017 season by clan chief Michael Wemyss.

Rolling Stock

With the society's purpose of preserving locomotives and rolling stock that either worked in Fife or have a Fife connection of some kind, the society uniquely, in its certain location, has the status of having its collection being based in a fifteen-mile radius of where they were first working during their early days in Fife.
The fife heritage railway has recently acquired

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

test train Class 313121 which was there

European Train Control System The European Train Control System (ETCS) is the signalling and control component of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). It is a replacement for legacy train protection systems and designed to replace the many incompatible s ...

test bed.

Future Plans

The current object for the society is raise its profile by introducing steam trains on their current branch along with Kirkland built up as a museum for Fife's railway heritage which looks to include a display building to be built in the not too distant future, along with a second steam locomotive. Work has started to restore a second steam locomotive to work alongside the current working locomotive, Forth. With recent developments of the reopening of the

Levenmouth rail link The Levenmouth rail link (also called the Leven rail link) is a planned scheme to re-open of railway line in Fife, Scotland. The link will connect the town of Leven, Fife, Leven and other settlements in the Levenmouth conurbation with Thornton ...

to take place within the next few years, the society hope to become a larger tourist attraction for the Levenmouth area and Fife as a whole.

References

External links

Website

Visit Scotland
{{coord, 56.195088, -3.016513 , display=inline,title Heritage railways in Scotland 1992 establishments in Scotland Tourist attractions in Fife